That other measure of joblessness hit 14.9 percent in June

The government said Friday that the unemployment rate held steady at 8.2 percent, but you might hear some people say that the "real" jobless rate is more like 15 percent.

Chances are, they’re talking about what the government calls an “alternative measure of labor underutilization.” It’s intended to be a more comprehensive look at people who are out of work plus those who have a job but would like a better one.

The broadest measure of labor underutilization hit 14.9 percent in June. That's up slightly from 14.8 percent in May and 14.5 percent in April. Still, it’s an improvement from this time last year, when that measure was at 16.2 percent.


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Try 15.1%.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/ser....

Wonder what the rate is if you include able bodied working age people who sit around getting handouts, rather than working.

In the last year 1.9 million people were added to the not in labor force category. U6 would be way higher if it were not for this (same goes for U3)

~23% ?

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_dat....

Quote:

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994.

Lot's of people dropping out of the workforce. Look at the divergence expanding.



Basicly what this is saying is the improvement in U3 and U6 is mostly due to people dropping out.

Remember the peak during the Great Depression was 25% as measured by SGS.

Darth: You mean swag.

Do all the people who have joined the disability ranks show up as out of the workforce?